You know, I was planning to cover this series. Until I watched the second episode, and the beginning of the third.
So far it’s the exact same thing as the first season. Exactly the same. So, you know, maybe I’ll start covering it once it does something different. Maybe.
It made me want to play the game. I already wanted to, but that was a long time ago and I kind of got over it. Then I played some and I realized I was right; game rules, anime’s pretty good too. Welkin Gunther is the son of a famous General in the country of Galleria. Think Sweden of WW2; it tried to remain impartial placed between the Allies and the Empire (I think you can tell who’s evil), but it’s got a huge natural supply of Ragnite, which is this world’s wonder substance. The Empire eventually invades to get access to their Ragnite mines (I don’t actually know what Ragnite is or how it’s obtained by the way). He’s returning home after being at school and stops to sketch some fish while, silly him, the Empire is busy invading their town. That’s when Alicia, sergeant in the town militia and full-time baker, finds him and arrests him as a spy. Some escapes follow, he heads home to find his sister, and there the misunderstanding is cleared up. It’s a little more complicated, of course; his sister is adopted from an old engineer friend of his father’s, and she’s a particular race (with purple hair) that people seem to hate. Alicia doesn’t trust her either, because of that. How racist. That’s when the Empire starts bombing their house and they turn to THE TANK.
Alicia’s breasts aren’t nearly as inflated as people made them seem initially. A little, sure, but she’s not exploding out of her uniform or anything. Don’t worry, I was checking nonstop throughout the episode and will continue my vigil in the foreseeable future. Also, the show uses some of the shading techniques I like so much from the game, which is cool.
Finally some male characters! Three male characters; one is annoying, one is generic (oh ho ho sorry two are generic), and the third doesn’t speak much but if memory serves he was the best. The big guy’s younger brother, the one the girl from last episode likes, has someone he likes. Of course. It’s his smokin’ hot next door neighbor/childhood friend, who is two years older than him and the rest of the peewee class. She doesn’t like anyone (yet). We’re also introduced to her and her two friends, who also like people. We will be treated to more, don’t worry. I’m going to tell you right now, the first 10 episodes or so are just going to set the stage for all the complicated relationships between everyone so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Cause I just did.
Well the drummer knows her cymbals, I’ll give her that. She’s using Zildjians, you can clearly see it in the intro, and they own so good job on that one. The actual episode is about finding a guitar for Yui. They go to the store and she finds one she really likes…for $2500. Ouch. She even gets her mom to give her a 10-month allowance advance (what the hell? really?) but that’s only $500. So everyone in the Light Music Club decide to get jobs to buy the guitar for her. I can sort of understand where they’re coming from; without a guitar there’s not much of a band. After everything’ said and done, however, Yui decides she can’t take their money, and says she’ll get a cheaper one.
Then Tsumugi (the rich keyboardist) bargains with the store clerk to bring the price down to $500. Turns out her family owns the store so she can basically do whatever she likes. Woot.
I was a big fan of the manga. And then it was canceled. At the same time as Mx0, which meant two good series were canceled at once to make room for…well, I don’t know what replaced them; I assume shit. So you can imagined I was quit surprised when I heard it was getting an anime adaptation. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense from a business perspective. But from a quality perspective it was a nice idea, so all things considered I’m pretty happy. I even have some small, futile hope that the author will take this opportunity to expand on the series a bit, if not provide a real ending. Don’t know if that’s going to come to pass, since this first episode took up just one chapter of the series.
The problem with blogging this series is that there’s a lot of characters. A lot of names, too, and you know how I feel about those. So most of the screenshots initially will most likely be of characters and names. It helps everyone get their dudes straight. Me, too.
So this time Ayumi (light brown hair, has an older brother who likes her) falls in “love” with Mamoru, whose older brother Misao has, in turn, fallen in “love” with Ayumi. While he’s a nice, popular guy in class, his brother’s basically a gorilla with a heart of gold who fights a lot. So she doesn’t want to go out with him, but does want to go out with his brother. Older brother confesses, she doesn’t want to go out with him but also doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, she gets captured by punks looking for him, he saves the day, etc. You know this story.
So far it’s alright. Very faithful to the manga, but Ayumi’s nowhere near the best character in the series so this episode is more of a jumping off point. Let’s jump off.
After this episode I’m torn. On the one hand the show is about four high school girls, new freshmen who try (and succeed) to save a club which is about to be disbanded. Sounds very lame. Add to this the main character, Yui, could not be more of a clumsy doofus if she were Homer Simpson. Within the first two minutes of the show she runs out of her house with a piece of toast in her mouth yelling “I’m late!” in a completely non-ironic fashion. She seems to lack the basic motor skills necessary to peel a banana. All together, not an encouraging combination.
Then there’s the actual story, which sorta rules. We all know how partial I am to Rocking Out, to the extent where I must capitalize the phrase; you may remember I initially gave Myself Yourself a thumbs up based on the intro, foolishly believing it to be a portend of things to come. That was a mistake, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. However this show is the real deal, okay? They’re trying to get together enough people to make a band, only the three girls don’t have a guitarist. They do have a drummer, a keyboardist and a *heh* bassist. So then comes along Yui, who stumbles into joining the club despite not knowing how to play. It’s not like the other girls are geniuses or anything though, so I suppose she’s got a chance to catch up if she can remember which instrument she’s playing at the time. Then again Toki doesn’t even do that and he’s the second fastest guitarist in the world so you never know.
Opening and Endings both rock, but in that inoffensive jPop Rocks way. It’s no DMC, that’s for sure; speaking of DMC, Krauser makes a cameo in this episode. That’s what eventually won me over. Yes, after thinking about it I suppose this show earns tentative approval. It’s probationary, though. One sign of major retardation and I walk.
The first half shows the Virgin Mary Festival taking place, but honestly there’s not much of the actual festival shown. It’s really about the history between Mariya and the Class President (who’s his cousin, I think I mentioned that before). Apparently she didn’t remember the real reason they stopped being friends anymore, but her memory was jogged when she saw the kids playing around. They were in the Virgin Mary Festival when they were kids, and Mariya (I assume this is when his sister was the girl) was pushed by another girl and tore the Pres’ dress off, and she was wearing Panda-Chang underwear. I don’t know what that is but it has something to do with China obviously, and began a long line of Panda-related nicknames. Brutal. Just when she’s about to forgive Mariya…well I think you know. I certainly did.
Second half is far more amusing and revolves around the seven mysteries of the school. I really hate this overused piece of garbage storytelling but at least here they manage to spin it into something amusing since Kanako is responsible for all seven of them in some way. Then there are the seven (real) mysteries of the second dormitory building Kanako lives in, which are all centered around God (not The God but the dorm’s God). Apparently something awful happens to you if you know all seven. Kanako hears six from her teacher, then Mariya (who only knows the seventh one) tells her the last. Uh oh.
Kanako’s set as the representative for the second years in the planning of the Mary Festival. It’s some big campus-wide activity where they have a parade with floats and the little kids dress up like angels, sort of like a religious Japanese Thanksgiving Day Parade, I gather. The problem is Kanako is agnostic and knows nothing about the Virgin Mary. In this case, literally knows nothing. So she asks the Student Council President to help. There’s some backstory with Mariya and the president (it’s absurd), things are gone into a little bit, etc. There’s a lot of violence in this episode.
Quickly absolved of any undergarment theft (only to steal it as soon as it’s discovered), Kanako is shifted to the side for this episode which focuses on…well, the other three. Kiri and the two friendly girls. The archery club one and the other with the pockets. It’s the archery girl’s birthday soon, but what she’s really hung up on is the way her friend and Kiri seem to be so friendly and whatever with each other. Jealoushy~. Of course, I don’t even need to tell you how it ends. Birthday coming up, her friend is spending all her time with another friend. It basically writes itself. As it’s done for the past, oh, I don’t know how many years. Too bad this episode was a little short on comedy past the first few minutes. Depressin’.
Physical examination time. No matter how many times I see this particular situation I still find it absolutely bizarre that measurements are taken yearly at school. Really odd. Anyway, Kanako and the other class reps are recruited to help out since they lack staff. Which drives her into a frenzy and quickly renders her bedridden. Aside from the wackiness which ensues, she learns that Mariya has a twin sister who’s dressed as a boy and is attending the associated Catholic boy’s school. All part of a will from their grandmother to inherit the chairman position at both schools. Frankly I don’t understand why so many rich people are chairmen of schools; doesn’t seem like a particularly prestigious or financially rewarding position. Whatever, I don’t care. The contest is that if any student finds out their true gender, that person is disqualified and the game is over.
Kanako finding out doesn’t count since she wasn’t a student when she discovered it. Supposedly. Aside from that Kanako gets gasoline poured on her and is threatened with incineration, someone’s bra goes missing and she’s fingered as the culprit; the usual stuff.
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